Actually, I spoke too soon. I think to engage in the real world is to engage in academia. Why ideas may seem lofty, they are the most applicable and real things there are. For instance, everyone participates in the discipline of philosophy. To live, to think, to act, etc., is to philsophize. The question is whether it is good or bad philosophy! So, the person that has a good grasp on the academic and the “real” world is engaging more in reality than those who don’t.